Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Treatment of Depression With Smartphone Support

Linköping University (LiU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depression

Treatments: Behavioral: 4 face-to-face therapy session and a smartphone-app; Behavioral: CBT, treatment as usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01819025

GA-PC-HH-KHL

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether face-to-face Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a smartphone application, focused on providing support in homework assignments and an increase in behavioral activation, is effective in treating mild to moderate depression. The study will be conducted as a randomized controlled treatment study investigating the effect of the current blended treatment compared to treatment as usual.

Full description

Mild to moderate depression is a major health problem, which lowers the quality of life for the individual and generates enormous costs for society. Several forms of psychotherapy have been found to be effective in the treatment of depression. Among these, behavioral activation has a strong empirical base. The efficacy of behavioral activation for treating major depressive disorders has been established in a number of studies over the last four decades.

Moreover face-to-face treatments could benefit from using smartphones as an adjunct to the regular sessions, which in the case of behavioral activation treatments for depression could facilitate activity scheduling and homework, which are crucial elements of the treatment. It may also be possible to reduce the number of sessions.

Since it has been shown that full behavioral activation is an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression, this study will be designed as a so-called non-inferiority study in which the treatment group, given fewer meetings face-to-face, but instead support in the form of a smartphone application. Instead of a traditional behavioral activation treatment of 10 sessions, the treatment group will be given four face-to-face CBT sessions and a smartphone app as a complement and support to the four sessions. As a control, the investigators will give full behavioral activation with 10 sessions of face-to-face therapy.

Enrollment: 88 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• depressive symptoms according to DSM-IV
• have access to a smartphone and to the Internet
• have good knowledge of the Swedish language

Exclusion criteria

• recent (during last 6 weeks) change in psychiatric medication
• presently in any other psychological treatment
• severe depression
• suicidal ideation

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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88 participants in 2 patient groups

4 face-to-face and smartphone-app

Experimental group

Description:

Four face-to-face therapy sessions and smartphone app as a complement and support to the four sessions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: 4 face-to-face therapy session and a smartphone-app

TAU

Active Comparator group

Description:

10 sessions of face-to-face therapy, full behavioral activation

Treatment:

Behavioral: CBT, treatment as usual